• You can give me or send me the Aggie Ring it is to accompany. I can make the ring then.
• If you wish to surprise the recipient, you can purchase a gift certificate. It comes on my stationary with a picture of the Reveille Ring explaining the gift they have been given and how to arrange for it to come to fruition.

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Mt hood stole my ring...

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My Aggie ring story....

My first go around at A&M in '93, I ordered my class of '94 ring - paid for by my parents. Ring day wasn't such a big deal back then, but it was still a great day. Dunked it at the Chicken, when you could still dunk it in a real pitcher and wore it with pride. For about a year.

The next summer, while out playing football in Lake Travis, the unimaginable happened. My ring fell off in the lake. We searched for hours. I was crushed. Then I flunked out of school. I won't say the two were related, but I didn't feel very much like a "real Aggie." I knew I didn't deserve another ring.

I still loved A&M with all my heart, but I got a job and moved on with life. Got married to my best friend -we met at A&M. Bridesmaids all wore maroon, and we planned our fall wedding for an away game weekend (never the less, the entire wedding party was watching the game in the pre-wedding hours). When our first son was born, we gave him an Aggie middle name courtesy of the place where we'd spent so many great Saturday afternoons - "Kyle."

A few years passed, and in 2007, we moved to Houston. I decided to go back to school and was considering U of H, and Prairie View (at least it has A&M in it's name). One weekend, while sitting at Dudleys, a good friend, hearing my plans told me - "Elsie, you're an Aggie. Why don't you go back to A&M?"

So I did. I talked to an adviser who told me I needed 17 hours to graduate. I went and made a lot of promises to the dean in my college. I took several hours at a community college in Houston - sometimes driving from Cypress to the Woodlands to take night classes when my husband was home from work to watch our two young sons. I kept my promises and got back into A&M.

It would take two semesters to finish my degree. So each morning I'd drop my oldest kiddo off at kindergarten, and the baby and I would drive to CS for classes. Dropping him off with my parents, I'd head to class, then meet them in the Home Depot parking lot to pick him up, drive back to Houston and pick up the oldest at after school care. Cook dinner, put the kids to bed and study late into the night. Rinse and repeat three days a week. Weekends were spent with me writing papers or studying for tests, instead of family time.

With graduation near, my husband and kids gave me a wonderful surprise... A new Aggie ring for their soon to be graduate. Class of '08. Money was tight - since we'd dropped to one income, but they found a way to do it.

MY Aggie ring, with it's identifying little dent above the eagle's head, and my married name carved inside, not only carries all of the symbolism inherent in the design - the patriotism, the development of the student, service to community and country, and pride in being an Aggie. It is also a daily reminder of the sacrifices (financial, time, etc.) that my husband and children made to allow me to accomplish that goal, and of the lesson that I taught both myself and my children - that sometimes you'll have roadblocks, but any thing worth having is worth working for. Anything worth doing is worth finishing.

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This Aggie Ring I got here was first purchased by your great-grandfather during the first World War. It was bought in a little land grant college in College Station, Texas. Made by the first company to ever make unified class rings. Up till then people just wore any random class ring. It was bought by private Doughboy Erine Coolidge on the day he set sail for Paris. It was your great-grandfather's Aggie Ring and he wore it everyday he was in that war. When he had done his duty, he went home to your great-grandmother, took the ring off, put it an old coffee can, and in that can it stayed 'til your granddad Dane Coolidge was called upon by his country to go overseas and fight the Germans once again. This time they called it World War II. Your great-grandfather gave this ring to your granddad for good luck. Unfortunately, Dane's luck wasn't as good as his old man's. Dane was a Marine and he was killed -- along with the other Marines at the battle of Wake Island. Your granddad was facing death, he knew it. None of those boys had any illusions about ever leavin' that island alive. So three days before the Japanese took the island, your granddad asked a gunner on an Air Force transport name of Winocki, a man he had never met before in his life, to deliver to his infant son, who he'd never seen in the flesh, his Aggie Ring. Three days later, your granddad was dead. But Winocki kept his word. After the war was over, he paid a visit to your grandmother, delivering to your infant father, his Dad's Aggie Ring. This ring was on your Daddy's finger when he was shot down over Hanoi. He was captured, put in a Vietnamese prison camp. He knew if the gooks ever saw the ring it'd be confiscated, taken away. The way your Dad looked at it, that ring was your birthright. He'd be damned if any slopes were gonna put their greasy yella hands on his boy's birthright. So he hid it in the one place he knew he could hide something. His ass. Five long years, he wore this ring up his ass. Then he died of dysentery, he gave me the ring. I hid this uncomfortable hunk of metal up my ass two years. Then, after seven years, I was sent home to my family. And now, little man, I give the Aggie Ring to you.

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Meh. Just another overpriced piece of jewelry that sits in a box at home. About as big of a deal as the so called 'aggie network'.

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